Why a Prospective Client Should Choose You

There are thousands of other freelancers out in the wild, so why should a prospective client choose you over your competition? They aren’t to know what will happen if they do or don’t hire you and they aren’t to know how you’ll carry out their project but if they somehow did know then they would choose you, wouldn’t they?

What you could do is just tell them straight up five or ten reasons why they should hire you instead of your competition. You can set up a new page on your website or send out an email to a prospective client and give them a list of five, ten, or however many reasons you think they’ll need that will convince them that you are the freelancer they should choose for their next web project. Try and keep the list short and snappy though so it doesn’t turn out to be the length of a 4-year-old’s Christmas wish list.

Creating this list should be fairly easy, if you already have a business plan then you’ll have done all of your SWOT analysis on your competition and yourself so you’ll know what your strengths are over your competitors. If you didn’t do this then don’t fret. Do some SWOT analysis research now and not only will you be able to create the list but you may also find out some interesting facts about your competitors and yourself that could help you out in the future too. You can use these strengths to create your list which should just be a snappy little headline and a small paragraph of text going into some brief detail on how you have this advantage and what benefit this has on the client.

An example of this would be the 10 Reasons page on the Media Temple website which highlights 10 good reasons as to why you should choose Media Temple as your web hosting provider. They’ve mentioned features that existing customers receive but these are features that prospective customers might not know about unless they chose Media Temple as well as items of interest that highlight their strengths over their competitors.

Constructing Your List

The reasons that you choose will obviously be personalized to you and your business so no one can tell you what reasons to list because it may not be applicable to you but here are five tips that you could use to help you construct your own list.

1. Standards or Certifications You Guarantee. You could list any relevant standards, certifications, or regulations that you guarantee to follow. When a prospective client reads this they’ll know that you will be offering and maintaining the highest quality of work – This is what they want from you. A guarantee of high quality work that is based on industry standards.
2. Be There Afterwards. If a prospective client is going to be investing a significant amount of their hand earned money into your services or product they don’t want to buy something from you and never hear from you again. They want to know that you’ll be there with them for the long haul and that you won’t be running off with their money. They’ll be much more inclined to do business with you if they know that you’ll still be there for them after the purchase.
3. Offer Specialist Services. Businesses like to do business with others who are specialists in their respective industry. If you can offer a specialist service or product to your client then they’ll be much happier knowing that you are experts in a particular area of your industry rather than dabbling in a bit of everything. Being a specialist in a particular area, such as Web accessibility is an advantage that you want your prospective clients to know about.
4. Be Charitable. Most businesses these days will boast about how they take part in charity events or do fund raising for non-profit organizations. Businesses like to see that others do this as well because it adds another dimension to you and your business. All businesses love making money, but if you can also give something away, whether it’s time, old business assets, or money to non-profit organizations then they may be more inclined to work with you rather than your competitor.
5. Customer Service and Support. Are your prospective clients aware of your outstanding customer service and support? If you offer such a service that will have your client putting the phone down or leaving a meeting with a smile on their face then make sure they’re aware of what you can do for them. Everyone likes to complain about rubbish customer service and support but if your prospective client knows that you’ll be offering an outstanding, high-quality, and professional support service then they’ll want to hire you and not your competitor.

They’ll be able to look at this list and clearly see that you’re the one they need for the job and no one else will suffice. Your competition is out of the clients mind and now you have them hooked this is the time to reel them in and get a contract signed.

Do Your Prospective Clients Know?

Have you already put measures into place to ensure that prospective clients know why they should hire you over the freelancer around the block? If you have then please share any tips you have in the comments.